A Season of Frost
by RaeC
Summary: Pre-Slash: Voldemort's dead. Harry's not.


A/N: This story developed from a challenge on one of my mailing lists. Each week we were given a word from the dictionary and asked to write a 100-500 word 'drabble' either using the word or using the word as a theme. Each one of the following is a 500 word scene that coalesced into a larger story. 

**_A Season of Frost  
by RaeC  
_**  
**Stolen**  
  
Severus stood in the shadows of the broom shed watching as Harry Potter flew around the Quidditch pitch with abandon. It was impossible not to feel the joy the boy took in the simple exercise. Every move, every twist and turn, as complicated as an opera and filled with just as much emotion. The slow, spiraling climb into the heavens that drew tighter, more focused, and faster the higher he flew, only to stop and drop several feet before lunging for one goal hoop or another.  
  
Severus held his breath as the boy executed a particularly foolhardy dive and then cursed him soundly as Harry breathlessly laughed. Was the fool trying to kill himself since Voldemort couldn't accomplished the job?  
  
"The young have the most amazing resilience, Severus. Don't you agree?"  
  
Severus caught himself before he betrayed his surprise at the Headmaster's appearance. It had been several months since the boy had lost his friends and the last of his family to Voldemort. The intense, secular young man who'd graced his classroom this past year bore little resemblance to the bright-eyed youth of seven years ago. Harry Potter had grown up overnight it seemed.  
  
The change, in his opinion, was not for the better. A silent Potter could not be as easily ignored as an arrogant one. Nor did anyone seem to be affected by this new, mature version of the insolent brat except for him.  
  
"The boy has a death wish, Albus. I do not believe he is adjusting at all."  
  
"He's had a hard life, Severus. Do not deny him these stolen moments."  
  
"As if the rest of us didn't." Severus sneered. "I am merely making sure that he does not spoil the pitch with his bodily fluids once he realizes that the laws of gravity do apply to him as much as any other."  
  
"If you are that concerned about young Potter, Severus, then," the Headmaster paused as he popped a candy into his mouth, "why don't you help him find what he has lost?"  
  
Severus tore his eyes from the sky to stare at the Headmaster incredulously. "You must be joking."  
  
"Merely a suggestion, my boy. Merely a suggestion." The Headmaster patted his arm and left with a mysterious twinkle that left Severus feeling as if he was being manipulated once again.  
  
A sharp cry brought his attention back to the pitch where Potter hung precariously from the handle of his broom. Severus whirled from the shadows for a clean cast and prepared to save Harry from himself yet again. Laughing, the boy swung back onto his broom as if he'd planned the whole incident from the beginning.  
  
The cheek! Once the boy was safely on the ground again, he'd give him detention to last a lifetime for scaring him like that! Muttering curses, Severus tucked his wand away and moved to hide back in the shadows.  
  
Dumbledore was mistaken. As if anyone, let alone Harry Potter, would want a bitter, used up Potions master as friend. 

**Four Angry Words**

"I assume by the lack of entourage and the still sealed doors of my cabinets, you were unsuccessful in your attempts to break my wards, Potter?" Severus never moved from his position at his bench and continued to stir his potion. Having known the boy was in his lab the moment he set foot in it, he prepared his ingredients all the while keeping half of his attention on Harry Potter. Wondering why the boy was there. What his plans were. Why he was skulking in the dungeons. His earlier antics on his broom must not have worn him out.

Harry's disembodied voice answered back. "I hate you, Professor." 

"The feeling is quite mutual, Potter. Now, get out." The potion was almost at that point where he could set his timer and begin something new, something he'd been waiting all day to begin. But first, he had to get rid of this...annoyance. 

"Why do you have to be such an arse?" Harry pulled the cloak from his head and sank to the floor.

"Why do you have to have everyone at your beck and call? Isn't it enough that the imbeciles fall at your feet on a daily basis?" Severus smirked as he looked down at Harry. The irony wasn't lost on him. In fact, he took a perverse pleasure in it.

"I didn't ask for this, Professor. Personally, I wish I'd never been born." Harry traced the edges of the stones in the floor never once looking up or changing the inflection in his voice. He could have said, 'have a nice day', 'are you going to eat that biscuit', or 'pass the salt' for all the emotion he put into the sentence.

"Don't ever say that again, boy!" Was Potter actually looking for absolution? Forgiveness of his multitude of sins? From him? The boy was more demented than he thought. 

The boy jumped to his feet, arms clenched tightly at his sides. "Why not? It's true!" Harry bristled and flushed with rage. Blood dripped from his hands where his fingers were curled too tightly into his palms. Severus would have to clean the floor again before Mr. Longbottom graced the dungeons.

Severus set his spoon down on the bench and turned the hourglass over. When the sand had filled the bottom vessel half way, it would be time to add more... "Because, Mr. Potter, you are and have always been more than the sum of your scar, even if you've never acknowledged the fact. Now, finish with your pathetic attempt at sulking and leave."

"I hate you, Professor." Harry hissed.

Fed up, Severus pushed the boy out of his lab. "So you've intimated before. Leave me alone, Potter." He slammed the door in Harry's face and turned back to his lab, his mind already fixated on the sound of his potion brewing. Perhaps if he added the staphysagria seeds whole instead of crushed it would do the trick.

Strange that hope could be wrapped in such poisonous trappings. 

**His Father's Son**

Harry waited quietly in the potion's classroom for his Professor. The dungeon was dark, the silence broken only by the rhythmic clicking of his wand as he rolled it from side to side on the table. It had been three weeks since Professor Snape completed his new potion and of course, tested it by pouring it down Harry's throat every night. Harry wasn't sure what it was supposed to *do*, but he did feel better in the mornings. And Snape stopped watching him every minute of the day, which in Harry's view was an improvement.

Harry was momentarily blinded as Snape finally entered the room. 

"Hiding in the dark, Potter?" Snape sneered at him.

Harry shrugged, continuing to push his wand across the table. "My father was a great Quidditch player."

"I am well aware of that fact, Potter." The professor dimmed the torches somewhat and lit the lamp on his desk as he began to gather the ingredients to brew his potion.

"My father was a good auror too." The wand slipped over a dip in the wood making a particularly loud click as it continued to the other side.

"Is there a point to this senseless trip down memory lane?" Snape slammed a bottle on the table and looked up at him.

Harry nodded. "I'm better."

"Your arrogance surpasses even your father's disgusting levels, boy." Snape poured water into his cauldron and began adding the various ingredients Harry had seen him work with every night. It tasted absolutely disgusting. 

"Just stating the facts, Professor. Isn't that what everyone wanted?" 

"What do you mean, boy?"

"Well, that's I think. I mean, I've been compared to him since the moment I entered the Wizarding World." Harry looked over at his professor innocently. "Do you think I'm my father, sir?"

"Do you really need me to answer that, Potter?"

"I'm not, you know." Harry continued to shunt his wand back and forth. "It feels like everyone wants me to be him. I've been told that I look like him, act like him, I'm even following in his footsteps as far as a career choice, but...I'm not him." Harry looked up, his eyes bright and intense. "I never was and never will be."

Severus snorted and continued to chop and stir.

"I'm not my father's son."

"And just why is that, Potter?" The Professor added the last ingredient before turning down the fire and turning over his hourglass.

"Because I can do something that he and most other wizards won't." Harry picked up his wand from the table and held it reverently, sadly.

"Your arrogance astounds me, Potter."

Harry smiled at Severus and then snapped his wand in half.

"What are you doing fool boy!"

"Living."

The wand clattered to the floor as Harry walked away each piece rolling in an opposite direction. One piece rolled into the shadows. The other clicked across the stone until it came to rest in the spotlight of his work lamp. It promptly burst into flame.

**Winter**

Harry dreamed that night. It wasn't a bad dream. Wasn't a good dream. Just intense. Enough to scare him into waking in a cold sweat and sticky sheets, his breath ghosting in the cool morning air. Harry struggled to remove his body from the tangle of bedclothes and got out of bed. He shivered as he pulled on his robe and slippers making his way across the cottage to the fireplace. 

The fire had burned down over the night, as it always did, and Harry began the process of stoking it back to life. His hands shook as he added kindling to the coals, blowing gently on the tiny flames. Knees ached from where the bitterly cold floor bit into his skin as he added more fuel. It never once crossed his mind that if he'd had his wand he could have had the room cosy and warm in minutes. Harry didn't think about magic anymore. 

He rose from the floor, his body objecting with not so silent aches and pains, reminders of the hard days past and a promise of the hard day to come. He shuffled toward the kitchen like a tired old man, his actions belied by the youthful face and form of an eighteen year old. It would come in time. He would eventually get used to the cold, the hard labour. 

Harry glanced out the small window over his sink toward the pile of stones in the back. In another week or so, the room he was adding to the back would be complete. He wanted to have the roofing finished before the first snow fell. Then all work would be inside. No more wind grabbing at his hair and fingers and seeping down his collar chilling him to the bone.

He was pulled from his thoughts by a knock at his door. The occasion startling enough to make him almost drop the kettle he held in his hand. He cautiously moved to the door and opened it a crack. 

"Potter."

Startled, Harry sloshed water over his hand, soaking his fingers. He wondered briefly if he stood there long enough if his fingers would cake over with ice and break. 

"Don't just stand there, boy. Open the door."

"No." Harry closed the door and headed toward his fireplace. He needed to warm the water for his morning tea. Behind him, an aggravated Severus Snape quickly entered the cottage. 

"I see your manners haven't improved."

Harry merely shrugged as his brain indulged in snatches from last nights dream. 

Dark, silky hair brushing across his chest. 

Firm lips biting, tasting.

A voice, deep and harsh, commanding as a pair of long fingered hands touched and pulled and took and gave.

Harry shook his head. "Would you like some tea?"

"No, thank you." 

Harry nodded as he put the kettle over the fire and pulled down two mugs from the mantle. It was lonely out here in the highlands. Perhaps he could convince Snape to stay a while.

**Patterns in a Shattered Glass**

"I don't want a cup of tea, Potter. I wish to conclude my business and be done with this hovel." Severus fumed as Harry herded him toward the only available chair in the room. "And I certainly have no desire to have your chair abuse my backside!"

Harry shrugged and with another not so gentle shove, pushed Severus into the uncomfortable seat. "How do you like your tea?"

"I don't want any bloody tea!"

"Cream? Sugar?" Harry poured hot water over the tea leaves, his hand shaking as the cup filled. He continued to ride roughshod over Snape's objections and shoved the tea into his hand barely avoiding spilling the hot liquid in his lap. "Sorry, I'm still a bit cold."

"Potter..." Severus began through gritted teeth.

"Harry." He insisted. 

"Potter." Severus placed his cup on the floor and stood. "I've suffered enough of your insanity today. Here, your wand."

"I don't have a wand." A bright fluttering scrap of yarn on his chair caught Harry's attention and he threw the thread into the fire. He didn't like the colour red. 

Severus ignored the boy. "You will need it. In the years to come. Albus had it repaired."

Harry cocked his head to the side and looked at the wood so innocently lying in Severus' hand. "It's got blood on it."

"This is a perfectly serviceable wand, Potter. The Headmaster went to a lot of trouble to have it repaired. The least you could do is say thank you." Snape was starting to get upset again, but Harry could care less.

"It's got blood on it." Harry stated again. 

Severus held out the perfectly white piece of wood as if expecting Harry to retrieve the thing. "It's who you are, Potter."

"It's someone I was molded to be. A very long time ago."

"You're a wizard, boy. Act like it." Severus snapped as he put the wand on the table.

"No. I'm not." Harry turned away, signaling the end of the conversation and began pulling on his outerwear. Severus joined him at the door. "Will you come back?" Harry asked as he stamped his feet into his boots. 

"Whatever for?" The man's voice grated on Harry. He'd always had that ability from the moment Harry first met him, but oddly, it was comforting. 

"It gets lonely out here." Harry faced his former professor silently pleading for the man to return. Severus was all he had from his past life that he wanted to keep. The man had never expected Harry to be anything other than what he was...a boy. 

"Apparate to a friend's house." Severus sneered at him as he walked out. 

Harry sighed. He didn't have any friends. They were all dead. Snape knew that. They all died the day that Voldemort cast the one Imperius curse that Harry couldn't throw off. 

"I don't do magic anymore." Harry glanced wistfully at his wand before closing the door and heading out into the cold morning. "It's got blood on it."

**If At First You Don't Succeed...Have Nightmares**

Harry dreamed again that night. His night time imaginings were filled with horrible screams and blood filled visions. Memories of a voice whispering insidious instructions in his ear. Words like 'kill', 'common', and 'never be as powerful as we are' as a cadaverous hand wrapped around his own guiding his wand toward life after life after life. 

"See how the pathetic things fall beneath our power?" Another arm pulled him tightly against a bony, decaying corpse. Harry gagged at the cloying scent of death surrounding him, struggling to free his mind as well as his body. 

Another stepped in front of him, his wand raised. Words he didn't understand brushed aside by a flick of his wand and more hissing in his ear. 'Betrayer', 'muggle-lover', and 'childhood enemy'. 'Time to put this upstart in his place'. And then. Nothing. 

The fair skinned body frozen on the ground. Pale eyes locked onto his own in horror. 'Crucio' and the form began to shake, locked in its prison of 'petrificus totalis'. He heard bones crack, shatter like glass as blood began to seep into fine blond hair from eyes, nose, mouth, and ears. Voice frozen in silent screams as the extremities began to warp, flatten, and contract against the unspeakable magic. 

"This is who you are." Blood. Pain. Death. 

"Potter." Eyes rolling back in his head. 

"Potter." Hands ripping the wand from his grasp and pushing, pulling, tossing him...onto the unforgiving floor of his cottage with a thud. Harry wearily looked up. 

"Hello, Malfoy. Thought you were dead." 

"Better luck next time, Potty." Draco brushed imaginary lint from his expensive wool cloak with a claw-like hand. He rose slowly from his crouch by Harry on the floor. It looked painful from Harry's position. The man must not have healed properly after... 

"You look like crap." His clock ticked in the silence as Malfoy studied him. "And it's fucking cold in here. Haven't you heard of heating charms, Potty?" Draco pulled out his wand and before Harry could finish uttering "don't", a fire burst to life in his grate. 

Harry scrambled to the far corner of the room to the astonishment of Malfoy. "What is wrong with you, Potter?" 

"N-n-nothing." Harry's stammers could be passed off as a chill since it *was* cold in the room and he wasn't wearing anything more than his flannels. Harry looked in the direction of the fireplace. It was as he expected. The fire wasn't a fire. It was a cold, blood red *thing* that laughed at him as it danced in his grate. He was going to have to scrub the thing out. 

"If you're finished," Draco held up a familiar bottle of potion. "Professor Snape sent me." 

Harry just looked at the potion. Blood dripped from Draco's hand and fell to the floor. He'd have to wash that too. 

"For Merlin's sake, Potter." Malfoy broke the seal and placed the bottle into his hand. "Drink it before you pass out." 

Harry tried not to flinch. 

**Necessary Things**

After Malfoy left, Harry struggled to his feet and began the long task of getting ready for his day. Several layers of clothes to put on to keep warm in the cold mountains of Scotland. A fire to put out so that the stones could be scrubbed. The peat to be soaked and let dry out since he couldn't afford to waste even that small bit. He'd have to think about getting another way to heat the house soon. The town below used gas. Maybe they'd share.

He dug out the cleaning supplies and scrubbed out the fireplace first. Years of fires burning in the grate couldn't hide the reddish tinge that coated the bricks after Malfoy's visit. Nor could the dirt hide the reddish areas on the floor. He started on that two days later when the fireplace was cleaned so well it looked freshly lain. 

He scrubbed and scrubbed, the flagstones took on a whitish hue from the frequent applications of lye and fervor. Harry didn't stop until hunger or exhaustion forced him into resting. Each stone was carefully examined for traces of dirt while he breathed or chewed or something similar. 

It reminded him of when he was younger, when he still felt that if he tried hard enough, put enough effort into pleasing Aunt Petunia that she'd have one word of acceptance for him. Maybe more than one. A whole sentence claiming how wonderful he was. How she loved him. That he was worthy of being a part of the Dursley's family. She simply sneered and then cut his hair and of course, blamed him for every shaving that didn't fall into the bin conveniently across the room. Or Dudley would track mud in and Aunt Petunia would yell that he purposely didn't clean the floor at all.

He shook his head at the simplemindedness of a child's dream. Dreams didn't require thought. Only hope. 

Sighing, he hauled himself across the frozen stones and splashed water over the last remaining bit. One more hour and the floor would be finished. Completely wiped clean. Without stain or dirt or flaw. It was a cheering revelation. He'd have to make sure that he constructed a mud room to prevent the outside world from influencing his little kingdom again.

His hands ached and bled slightly along the cracks in his skin from the soap, the weather, and the water. But it didn't matter. His house would be in order.

"Potter! What are you doing?"

Not again. Why couldn't they just leave him alone? "Cleaning."

"I believe the floor is adequately free from whatever offended your sensibilities."

Harry paused and looked around. The floor glowed. Aunt Petunia couldn't claim that his hair marred the brilliant shine this time. His hair was dark. The floor…white. White, everywhere. And last of all…he smiled to himself as Professor Snape gently tugged him to the sink and washed his hands and then applied some sort of cream with strong, sure strokes…

No more blood.

**Undertow**

Harry rolled over and stared at the dark figure that appeared in his chair next to his bed. He didn't remember having company over. 

"Hello, Professor."

The professor was startled from his thoughts. "Potter," he nodded. "The Headmaster wishes your presence at the Yuletide Feast."

"Don't feel like it." Harry threw the covers off before noticing that he was naked beneath the layers of blankets. He hastily pulled the sheet off the bed to cover himself as he searched for his clothes. He snarled at Snape's aborted chuckle.

"I don't believe that was a request." Snape tapped his fingers on the arm of the chair.   
  
"I don't care." Harry pulled on his shirt. The chair didn't have arms. He looked again and Snape had his hands in his lap. 

"What **do** you care about?" Snape leaned forward all of his attention focused on him.

Harry stared hard at his ex-professor. "Waking up in the morning. Building my back room. Spending an afternoon in good conversation with a friend…or at least an almost friend."

"I take tea every afternoon at four as you would know after living in Hogwarts for seven years. What else?"

Harry shuffled across the room to the kitchen to look for his teapot while he thought about Snape's question. He couldn't find it. Nothing was where it was supposed to be. Not even his table. He gave up. "Living to see the next few generations of children grow up without fear or death or madmen trying to kill them."

"How do you plan on accomplishing the latter buried in this hovel?" 

Harry looked at his floor that he was sure he cleaned yesterday. There were spots on the floor that hadn't been cleaned in years. It looked like just like it did the day he moved in. "Haven't you figured it out yet, Professor? If I'm not there, they will. I attract trouble. You've told me so since day one."

"Do you believe everything I tell you, boy?"

"No." Harry looked speculative. "Malfoy's not dead."

"No." Severus leaned back in the soft cushions of his chair. "Just…"

"Damaged."

Snape nodded.

"And Ron and Hermione?"

Snape looked uncomfortable.

"Still dead then." Harry fell on the hard mattress of his bed and stared at the stone ceiling.

"Yes."

He turned his head back toward Severus. "Why did you send Malfoy?"

Dark eyes bored into his with unnamed emotion as Severus stood. "It was time for you to realize that not everything was as you believed."

His cottage began to shift again. Dark, decaying mud walls morphed into solid stone humming with life and power.

"And if I didn't want to?" Harry shifted into a sitting position on the bed. He really wanted to believe. In what, he wasn't sure yet.

Snape gestured at what was left of the 'hovel'. "This room doesn't answer to my needs, Potter." Snape pulled him to his feet and held him close. "It will stop hurting one day."

"Just not today."

"No, not today." 

**Numb**

Whoever said potions was an art form, lied. They never had to slice and dice and chop in exactly the right measurements. Or had to stir clockwise and counter-clockwise just so many times to create the abomination that stole reason or thought. 

**They** didn't have to drink the golden brew, which tasted so sweet, dripped in the purest honey, addictive by taste, by texture. They didn't rush to the battlefield filled with the power, the rush of an unnamed potion burning through their veins. They didn't have to watch in horror as some mysterious force overcame friend after friend. 

Wasn't sure what the bloody hell happened as pain exploded in his head, nerves as sharp as knives slicing through his brain, weakening his mind to the invasion already taking place. Once Harry would have believed he was impervious to the imperious curse. Once, but not anymore. 

Not with the sinister laugh wading it's way through his past, gleefully displaying the final betrayal: the white owl that flew with all due speed to Riddle Mansion to deliver into Lucius' hands the means to break Harry Potter. A potion designed and developed to break one's inhibitions. Kind of like a really good bottle of whiskey, only quicker and without the hangover. 

Harry couldn't fight Voldemort because the man already held him close, using Harry as a shield as well as a weapon. Couldn't deny that he was trapped. 

Not with Ron's body lying at his feet, torn and broken and Hermione next to him, her body fused with his. Both of their faces contorted beyond human reckoning. Bone blended to bone. Muscle twisted and trying to bend unnaturally into position around their cheeks; mouths no longer existed, only a gapping maw with jagged teeth. Hands merged in a grotesque parody of lovers showing affection to one another. Bodies pooled into one space, sharing the spasms the signaled the end of their lives. 

It had to be as spectacular as Voldemort could make it, as painful and bloody and long. And Harry watched unable to do anything, Voldemort not allowing him to look away. His eyes were glued to his friends as the last bit of humanity left and the blessed silence of death took over, the last curse, a denial of eternal rest. 

And it wouldn't have been as satisfying if the insanely vindictive Dark Lord hadn't been holding Harry's wand as they died. If Harry wasn't the one to utter 'dolori aeternus'. If they hadn't died thinking Harry had taken pleasure in their deaths. He could do nothing but scream in horror and frustration locked in a tiny corner of his mind, Voldemort's whispers of their coming greatness his only companions. 

--- 

Harry pulled away from Snape. The lingering warmth from his body breaking through the shield he was building around himself. He pulled on a dress robe, ran a hand through his hair, and strode from the room without reservation. Six months it took, but he was numb, 

…finally. 


End file.
